Tim Witherspoon vs Frank Bruno - (Tons of pre-fight material)

This was a great event. The U.K. had three TV channels and the fight was on two of them. I don’t think anything could ever be so big now because of how diluted celebrity is now. Internet etc.

My late dad drove a London black cab during this era and each day he would come home having been driving around London all day and tell me how many of Witherspoon’s entourage he saw that day. He would see large groups of Tims team out sight seeing in matching Tim Witherspoon tracksuits and he would say “I bet they take Tim to the cleaners” because there was so many of them. Later when it came out that Tim only made Small change I knew it would be down to all the hangers on he was supporting. Flight tickets for his team alone must have been huge! Then there was hotels and feeding them all..

 

A timely reminder for those who would build Bruno up into more than he was.

 

I think it still shows what a great event it was. And is a time capsule for how good things used to be. Bruno dosnt have to have been an all time great to have been a fighter who paid his dues and to have taken a fighter like Witherspoon to the wire. Two men putting it all on the line. No stalling or staging. I think Bruno comes out of it as a fighter who would have been a handful for most champions for at least a number of rounds. Witherspoon dug deep too.

Of course the internet generation will look at Bruno and Witherspoon and decide 2+2 makes 10 just because they compare well with today’s fighters and use that against earlier fighters who were regarded greater before that time.

Still, Bruno and Witherspoon put on a hell of a struggle. A real battle not for the faint hearted.

 

love finding the hbo fights with the prefight included. often times i find the build up back then more interesting than the fights. its interesting to see the context heading in and the opinions of experts and the interviews with the fighters then. so much hindsight and excuses and narratives now that made no sense then.

really like seeing the old footage with merchant, he used to be great, i feel he has been pigeon holed so much for his past prime performances

 

Yes the fight stands up. I remember the 1980s to be boring but looking back the fighters themselves were a really good standard. Guys like Witherspoon, page and Tubbs could really fight but all anybody would talk about was how lazy they were. By today’s standard they were not that fat, and if you get guys of a really close standard all fight each other it really levels off and it is hard to see what’s great about them. At the time Bruno was seen as a new in shape fighter with muscles. Tyson too. If you listen to the gushing previews of Tyson’s early fights you get a sense of how desperate the industry was for some excitement. Tysonmania was huge! But really, it was only the spectacular knockouts of more inferior fighters than Witherspoon was fighting that was really eclipsing guys like Tim. I don’t think today a contender knocking over a Ratliff or Gross type would over shadow an actual champion because the worth of the opponent is a greater consideration. But perhaps Nobody was really focusing on other contenders knocking out stiffs (and they all did it too) but when Tyson was doing it they made up highlight reels and loved his Cus story so much.